Top 3 Marketing Analytics Tips

Investments in marketing, particularly content, are set to increase. But if marketers don’t know if their efforts are boosting the bottom line, then what’s the point? Marketing analytics enable a marketer to gauge the success of strategy and its components as paths to eventual conversion. When marketing analytics show that a tactic isn’t working, change it; if it is working, try to repeat that success with other elements of your campaign.

Following are three of the most important analytical results to indicate if your web strategy is meeting your goals.

Marketing analytics basics

1. Traffic

Web traffic is actually a number of data points that combine to fill in a picture of typical site users. It shows how many people are visiting and where they come from (direct, search, or referral). Put together, traffic stats indicate the direction of a marketing campaign over time.

For example, if fewer visitors are arriving this week via search engines, you should check your keyword strategy and what your competitors are doing differently. In contrast, if you have seen an uptick in users originating on social networks, you might want to find out why, and perhaps put some more resources in that area.

You should examine where your referrals are originating, for example, through feedback, customer reviews, or re-tweets. Keep in mind that traffic originating from links on other sites (inbound links) can be much more effective than on-page SEO.

2. Site Activity

Time-on-site and its opposite, bounce rate, will show you how well your website appeals to users once they show up. If users leave immediately, you might have a slow load time or a homepage that is not aesthetically appealing.

Heatmap technology can help you figure out what users are doing on each page. Spending a lot of time reading content is good, but spending a lot of time filling out a confusing contact form is bad. User experience data can show you exactly what changes you should make, and when you should leave things as they are.

3. The Bottom Line
Every marketer needs to know how much revenue is generated from the website. A primary figure for this is the close rate, which tells you what percentage of leads become customers. The close rate might be affected by fundamental issues, for example, a product line that is simply unappealing, or by a tactical problem, for example, a poorly designed checkout process.

The main indicator of success is ROI – how many dollars you get for every marketing dollar you spend. When analyzing ROI, it is essential to track the whole user journey behind the figure. If you have a small sales volume but it is highly profitable, you might want to expand the traffic sources and content that led to those sales.

The Tech Effect

A regular assessment of your analytics results will keep you up to date and ahead of the curve. A website that is suddenly seeing a traffic slowdown, high bounce rate, or poor ROI might just be the victim of recent competition. Plus, once a website falls out of favor, it can take a very long time and a lot of effort before users return.

Therefore, a powerful marketing analytics program which makes it easier to see, understand, and change website results can be the deciding factor. Check out some of our other posts for more information.